Chinese Soy Sauce Chicken Galantine

One of the things I really enjoy about CharcutePalooza is learning to make new things while at the same time trying to figure out how to incorporate something familiar into each challenge.  That point of reference could be a flavor, a texture, an aroma, an ingredient, or a technique.  For the October CharcutePalooza, galantine, I drew from Chinese BBQ: soy sauce chicken and cold poached chicken with ginger-scallion oil.

Keeping with the Chinese influence, I decided to use the Chinese holy trinity of ginger, scallion, and garlic for the aromatics and shiitake mushrooms and wood ear fungus for the garnish.

When it came time to make the galantine, some parts were easier than others.  Thanks the previous challenges, producing the forcemeat was a breeze.  I was worried about skinning the chicken, though, as the recipe calls for keeping the skin in one piece.  However, it was surprisingly easier than I thought.  The only part I struggled with was separating the end of the drumsticks from the skin by pulling the drumsticks through “as if you were removing a tight shirt.”

Up until the point where I had the chicken breast laid out on top of the forcemeat, I was pretty confident that I’d be able to finish up this challenge without a hitch.  I was wrong.

Rolling the galantine into an even cylinder proved to be extremely difficult for me.  After a few tries, the best I could muster was a galantine shaped more like one of the Michelin Man’s appendages or Lumpy Space Princess.  I was afraid if I didn’t tie the support strings tight enough the forcemeat would spill out.

In order to make the galantine a true Chinese soy sauce chicken galantine, I poached it in the mother sauce I created about a year ago when I made my first soy sauce chicken.  The mother sauce is a combination of soy sauce, chicken stock, rock sugar, ginger, scallion, garlic, cinnamon, and star anise.  Each time it’s used to poach something, fresh aromatics are added and the meat being poached deepens the flavor of the liquid.  The soy sauce gave the skin that distinct brown hue that comes with every soy sauce chicken.

Yes, the galantine looked like a piece of poop as a whole, but when sliced it was hard to tell.  Although the slices did come out a bit oblong, the flavors and textures were spot on.  The wood ear fungus provided crunchiness and the shiitake provided a little more meatiness to the soft forcemeat.  As is traditional in Chinese cuisine, I garnished the cold chicken galantine with ginger-scallion oil which was a nice refreshing contrast to the dark flavors imparted by the mother sauce.  Overall, the dish was new yet familiar at the same time.  Overlooking the failure to roll the galantine perfectly, I felt pretty good about how this month’s challenge ended up.

 

Ginger-Scallion Oil

Via my recipe previously posted here

Chinese Mother Sauce (makes about 2 kg)

Mise En Place

1. 1 kg chicken stock or water
2. 0.5 kg soy sauce
3. 0.5 dark soy sauce
4. 100 g vermouth
5. 100 g ginger, sliced and smashed
6. 100 g scallion, roughly chopped
7. 100 g garlic, smashed
8. 100 g rock sugar
9. 10 g black peppercorn
10. 2 star anise
11. 1 cinnamon stick

Method

1. Simmer for 2-3 hours, tasting every now and then and adjusting accordingly
2. Strain

Galantine Forcemeat Aromatics

Mise En Place

1. 18 g ginger, minced
2. 18 g scallion, minced
3. 18 g garlic, minced

Galantine Forcemeat Garnish

Mise En Place

1. 20 g dried shiitake mushrooms, soaked in warm water for 30 minutes
2. 20 g dried wood ear fungus, soaked in warm water for 30 minutes

Siu Yuk: Chinese Roast Pork

As crazy as it may seem, there was a dark time in my life when I gagged at the thought of eating a piece of meat with any visible fat or skin on it.  The texture of fat and the thought of eating something that could contribute to heart disease scared the crap out of me.  Being a fat kid who loved to eat in my youth, this aversion perplexes me now that I think about it.



Unfortunately, it wasn’t until the past few years that I started liking siu yuk: Chinese roast pork.  I feel like I really missed out all the times my family would get Chinese BBQ, which always included an order of Chinese roast pork.

The first step in making Chinese roast pork was to make my own freshly ground five spice powder.  I’d never used Szechwan pepper before and frankly didn’t know what it looked like, so it was exciting to utilize them for the first time.  They’re the deep red pods seen above.



Typically the entire pig is roasted for Chinese roast pork, but I wanted to concentrate on what’s considered by many as the most sought after part of Chinese roast pork: the belly.  In order to get the skin extra crispy, it’s heavily salted to draw out as much moisture as possible and let to sit overnight.  The skin and meat are also rubbed with five spice powder.  During roasting, the skin is brushed with vinegar to promote the crackling and bubbling of the skin.



The alternating layers of fat and lean is what makes the belly so desirable, while the crispy skin adds much needed texture to the bite.  Sometimes it can feel a little too fatty though, and I’m not afraid to trim off a layer or two of fat.



About a year ago, I heard of Momofuku’s now infamous pork belly buns.  They reminded me of the traditional preparation of Peking duck, but with pork belly instead of duck.  Taking that as inspiration, I made my own steamed bao from scratch and slapped a couple pieces of the roast pork, green onion, and Hoisin sauce in between the bun.  Needless to say, it turned out to be a winning combination.

Char Siu Bao: Chinese BBQ Pork Buns

Happy New Year.  Last Sunday was Chinese New Year and in celebration of the Year of the Tiger, I decided to make a couple dim sum staples since I figured I could make them better than most of the dim sum places in Chicago.  I have yet to find a place in Chicago that can come close to comparing to some of the places in California and even Houston for that matter.

I was originally only going to make Chinese spare ribs in black bean sauce, but the smallest amount of spare ribs I could find at the market were 3 pounds.  No biggie.  Chinese people love pork, and there is no shortage of pork-related dim sum dishes.  I’d been wanting to try make bao (is the plural baos?) for a while now, so I figured with the extra pork in hand that this would be a nice opportunity to make steamed char siu bao: Chinese barbeque pork buns.  I’ll save the baked version of char siu bao for another day.

For those who haven’t had Chinese barbeque or are too intimidated by the hanging pigs, chickens, and ducks in the front of Chinese barbeque places: please do yourself a favor and try it.  Order some barbeque pork, roast pork, roast duck, and soy sauce chicken from the takeout counter and you won’t regret it.  A lot of Chinese barbeque places don’t allow you to order barbeque when you sit down at their restaurant and only serve it as take out.  So for anyone in Chicago, I beg of you, please skip Sun Wah’s sit-down restaurant and try their barbeque next time you’re thinking of going there.  It’s actually pretty good even when put up to California standards.



For the buns, I pretty much followed the recipe found here.  You’ll notice that the measurements are by weight, so I was glad that after reading Ruhlman’s Ratio, I bought a digital scale for the kitchen.  I’m a big fan of cooking and certainly baking in units of weight rather than volume as it’s much more precise.  You may also notice the use of “Hong Kong flour.”  I’m pretty sure if you see recipes calling for “Hong Kong flour” you can substitute it with cake flour or any other flour with a low percentage of protein.

As this was my first time making any type of bread, I was pretty scared I was going to screw something up.  Anything that calls for the use of yeast has always freaked me out for some reason.  I always have the feeling that I’m going to somehow kill the yeast thingies and they won’t do their job.  After kneading for a good 10 minutes, I left the dough alone to (hopefully) double in size.



Unfortunately, after an hour the dough had barely risen, but I was impatient and wanted to eat some char siu bao ASAP.  I portioned the dough into ten 70 gram balls, rolled them out, and stuffed them with the Chinese barbeque pork that I made overnight.  I was pretty lazy when it came to making the pork.  All I did was throw the spare ribs into a crock pot with some char siu sauce, green onion for aromatics, and a little of my endless supply of homemade stock.  Surprisingly, the pork came out really good considering the amount of effort involved.



I’m still trying to figure out the best way to seal the buns, because I found the method of folding the sides up and twisting to not be 100% fool-proof.  On a few of my buns, it was really hard to get the dough to seal even with the twist.  These pesky buns that wouldn’t seal very well ended up opening up during the steaming process, leaving a sad pool of water inside of them from the condensation dripping down into them from the steamer’s lid.



Overall, though, I was very pleased with the results.  I can honestly say they were as good if not better than most steamed char siu bao I’ve had.  The bun itself was super fluffy and super moist.  Sometimes the buns can be dry to the point where you can’t take more than one bite of bun before reaching for a glass of water to help it go down.  This usually happens during the first or last bite of the bun, when only the bun part is left.

Knowing how to make the basic bao dough also opens up a lot of options.  Traditionally speaking, barbeque pork buns and custard buns are the most popular.  But I can use bao dough for Vietnamese-style banh bao filled with traditional Vietnamese fillings, for flat buns to be eaten with roast duck or pork belly (a la David Chang), or even for peanut butter & jelly sandwiches.  And yes, I did try eating it with PB&J and it was pretty amazingly awesome.

I Love New Pork City, Part 1: Carnitas

I’ve been going on a pork rampage of sorts lately.  It all started when my dad visited a couple weeks ago.  It seems every time he visits, we end up picking up some Chinese roast pork and Chinese BBQ pork.  I hadn’t had Chinese BBQ in a few months, but it reminded me how awesome pork is.  It’s hard to deny the perfect harmony of a Chinese roast pork’s lean, fat, and crispy skin.  After rekindling my love for pork, I felt it was necessary to plan my next grocery list accordingly.  I picked up some nice pork shoulder and some nice pork belly.  My plan was to use 75% of the shoulder for carnitas and the remaining 25% and the belly for thit kho (Vietnamese caramelized braised pork).  So first up was the carnitas.

I have to admit that I’m a relative carnitas noob.  Even after living in Southern California for a long time, my family didn’t frequent many Mexican restaurants.  If we ever went out for Mexican food, 99% of the time it was strictly for menudo.  I still remember the place though: it was in Monrovia right next to the storefront they used as the pet store in the Beethoven movie.  When it came to taco stands, the only exposure I had was to Taco Treat which was right down the street from where we lived.  As a fat kid growing up, I was addicted to their chimichangas (basically a deep fried bean and cheese burrito) and taquitos.  I’m also a bit ashamed to say that I haven’t taken advantage of the many offerings of the large Hispanic community along Clark Street in Rogers Park which is just a stone’s throw away from me.  My only experience with carnitas is from Chipotle, and I don’t have any other reference to judge whether their carnitas is authentic.  All I know is that I like the general flavors and love pork.

I like my carnitas to have a nice sweetness and a hint tartness.  I’ve seen recipes call for orange juice or colas, but I like to use tamarind.  Fortunately, I can get fresh tamarind pods at my local Food 4 Less thanks to a large Hispanic community in the area rather than having to settle for tamarind paste.  The only problem with buying fresh tamarind pods is that none of the cashiers ever know what it is even when I tell them.  This time around when I told the cashier what it was and spelled it out for her, she couldn’t find it in her little code book because it’s actually listed as “tamarindo” rather than tamarind.  You’d think she’d be able to figure out that tamarindo and tamarind are the same thing and that tamarindo is simply the Spanish word for tamarind.